


Mouse Trap

by KittyHawke



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Kidnapping, M/M, Mild Gore, Pre-Canon, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25653649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyHawke/pseuds/KittyHawke
Summary: Nicky is not a mouse, but it can be advantageous to be perceived as one.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 52
Kudos: 857





	Mouse Trap

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a protective Nicky fic because I subscribe to the headcanon that he is absolutely feral and only comes across as the calm one because Joe is so overtly protective that he never gets the chance to show off his vicious side. It ended up tying into the "He thinks you're a mouse" line because I just love that and with how long these guys have lived, I'm sure there's a story behind almost everything. I hope you enjoy reading.

_1924_

Joe was compelled to sit down in a small, uncomfortable wooden chair and his arms were pulled forcefully around the frame to tie them. He grumbled and wriggled in protest, but his captors only pulled harder and he had to stop or risk his shoulders popping out. They would heal, but the agony wasn’t worth it.

He waited to have the hood removed so he could finally get a look at where he was, but instead the footsteps moved away and a heavy door closed. Joe was plunged into silence. “Nicky?” he whispered. There was no answer. That was surely good. It meant the mobsters had only gotten hold of him. More often they targeted Nicky as he was a well-behaved prisoner, but Joe was grateful that this lot had tried a different tactic. He would much rather be the one locked in a cold basement, awaiting torture, than to suffer knowing Nicky was here.

Now where was he? 

He sat there for a moment, listening intently. There were pipes running along the sides of this room. He could hear them gurgling and beyond that, the sound of drunken laughter and shouts, even some women’s voices. So a speakeasy and gambling den, and potentially a brothel too. Did they know of any gangs that had those businesses all in one building? He started to run through the file in his mind, and then stopped when the door creaked open again.

Footsteps approached across the stone floor and Joe tensed, ready to use his feet or head if he had to, and groaned in protest at the light in his eyes when the hood was pulled off.

“Do you know why you are here, Mr Jones?” a thin, Italian-accented voice asked. It was nothing like Nicky’s accent. Southern, he thought, Sicilian.

“No, but I’d like to find out.”

The man chuckled and Joe was able to focus enough to make out his appearance. He wore a suit and trilby hat with a cigarette sticking out of his mouth, flashing his teeth in a wide smile. He was flanked by an ominous looking shadow of a man who looked like an undertaker, and two identical men in flat caps. Behind them the door was guarded by three mean-looking men- one holding a baseball bat, another a brick, and the third with his hand shoved mysteriously into his coat pocket- and a younger man in a baggy shirt, his sleeves rolled up and looking like he was prepared for a playground fight rather than a torture and interrogation session.

“I’m surprised it doesn’t stick in your memory. I would recall destroying a whole warehouse of my enemies’ supplies” the leader remarked.

Joe sighed. “You might have to be more specific.”

The boss sneered at him and jerked a hand at the door. The young man came forward, pulled his arm back and punched Joe across the face. He grimaced, checking with his tongue to make sure his teeth were intact, and turned his head at an angle so they wouldn’t notice the bruise healing.

“There’ll be more where that came from if you don’t cooperate,” the boss warned. “But let me jog your memory. Three days ago at the docks, you blew up a storage facility. We got the whole story from the kids who work down there.”

Ah, the warehouse. Joe remembered now. “That whole place was filled with antifreeze. You were planning to sell poison to people.”

The man shrugged and tapped the ash of his cigarette onto Joe’s knee, creating a round burn mark in the fabric. “Well, if they’d rather drink antifreeze than go without, why shouldn’t I make a little money off them?”

Joe glared at him. “Listen, I know you and your kind are making money off the misery of others and it’s impossible to stop you all…” He and Nicky had tried at first, but these gangs were like a Hydra. Destroy the operations of one and the others would expand to fill their place. It had become imperative to choose battles wisely. “But you are planning to murder people for cash. We had to stop you.”

“Who is we? Who do you work for? The Neapolitans?”

“No, we work for ourselves.”

“I don’t believe it. Two men don’t have this much power. You better tell us who your boss is or else.”

“Or else what?” he challenged. “This place is well-known as your base of operations, isn’t it? You’ve got everything under one roof. That was a mistake. Nicky will find me in less than a day.”

The boss gave a nasty laugh. “That’s your little friend, isn’t it?”

Joe opened his mouth to protest the term, but the man kept talking.

“Do you think we’re stupid? We know about you two. We know how this goes. You tear through the businesses of hard-working men to get them riled up and use your friend as bait to find their headquarters, and the whole thing ends in a pile of corpses. We’re not making that mistake. We’ve got you here, nice and subdued, and what do you think that little mouse of yours is going to do on his own?”

“You think I use him as bait?” Joe demanded. He wasn’t sure whether to feel incredulous or furious, and the two emotions warred for supremacy. “You think I would let the light of my life be hurt in the pursuit of scum like you? No. It is you and your friends in this cesspool of human misery who keep hurting him, because you think he’s weak and you’re all too cowardly to fight a man that you believe to be your equal. You’re wrong about Nicky. He’s far stronger than I am. He puts himself in front of me and I thank you for leaving him alone, but he doesn’t cause trouble because he’s a good person, one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet. He's not weak and he won't show you mercy.”

“Oh, how terrifying!” one of the other men mocked. Joe shook his head pityingly. There was no reasoning with these people.

“It’s in your best interests to let me go now, before this gets any further.”

The boss bent down to look him in the eye, keeping just enough to distance to stop Joe kicking his knees from under him. “You have one more chance to tell me who your boss is, or else I will take you to the Hudson and tie blocks around your feet.”

He couldn’t suppress the shudder of fear and, when the man’s smile widened, knew that his reaction had been noticed. He could handle almost any form of torture, but being moved to another location where Nicky wouldn’t be able to trace him so easily, left in a body of water…It was a nightmare come to life.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” he said earnestly. “I don’t work for a gang. We’re mercenaries, and you’re going to die if you don’t let me go.”

The man’s jaw twitched furiously and he stood up, took the cigar out of his mouth and pressed the flaming tip into Joe’s neck. He gritted his teeth to hold back the scream of pain, hoping fervently that they wouldn’t notice the scar fade. He would be a whole new world of trouble if they saw that.

“Get him out of here.”

The boss walked away as his guards stepped forward. Two of them grabbed the chair while the one with a baseball bat lifted his weapon. Their boss opened the door and suddenly the room was filled with screams. The men around Joe paused, surprised. Those were not the typical screams of the drunken customers having fun. The rattle of a Tommy gun, heard in the brief moments of silence, was also concerning.

Their boss turned, pale in the face. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

A grin spread across Joe’s face. “I think my little mouse has come for me.”

The boss slammed the door shut and started yelling in Sicilian dialect, waving his arms as if trying to shoo a cat. He strode across the room. One of other men joined him in grabbing a ladder from the corner, climbing and starting to unscrew something on the ceiling.

The door slammed open with enough force to crash into the wall and Joe immediately felt warm blood on his face. The man to his right dropped like a stone.

“Nicky!” he called, overjoyed.

Nicky looked like an avenging angel, beautiful and terrifying. He paused a second to survey the scene, noted that Joe was in the middle of all these people, and dropped the gun. “Joe, close your eyes” he ordered, unsheathing his sword.

He obeyed at once, listening to sounds of sliced flesh and shrieks turned into bloody gurgles. One gunshot went off and he couldn’t stop his eyes flying open, seeing Nicky engaged with the man who had had one hand in his coat. It turned out that he was indeed carrying a gun, but not for long. Nicky reeled backwards from the shot, recovered within a second and whipped his sword around with a speed that caused the blade to sing. The man’s body turned sideways as he fell and he landed face first, a pool of blood beginning to spread from under him.

Nicky took his gun, turned and fired over Joe’s head. There was a soft thump as someone fell off the ladder and he looked around, eyes blazing, for survivors. The room had become a slaughterhouse in the space of a minute with blood on the floor and walls, flecks of organ matter and a hand laying several metres away from the body it used to belong to. Only one person remained alive, the youngest gang member with the rolled up sleeves, crawling feebly towards the door. Three steps and Nicky had ground his heel down on the man’s hand, crushing every one of his fingers, before inserting the sword into his throat. He cleaned the blade, returned it to its sheath and turned towards Joe. His face changed in an instant, back to the kind expression that was so familiar.

“Amore, are you okay?” he asked concernedly, coming over and leaning down, his eyes scanning Joe’s face.

“Better for seeing you.”

Joe leaned their foreheads together, little caring that Nicky was still sticky with blood, and smiled at the gentle kiss pressed into his hair before Nicky moved to untie him. It was such a relief to be able to stretch his arms. He sighed happily and stood up, wrapping Nicky in a hug. He pulled away faster than he normally would, still scanning for signs of injuries.

“Did they hurt you?”

“They didn’t have time. They only threatened to throw me into the Hudson.”

Nicky’s eyes flared with anger again and Joe quickly squeezed his hand. “But they didn’t. You were so fast, love. You put me to shame.”

“It was easy. The dock workers pointed me in this direction.”

“They’ve been very helpful, haven’t they?” Joe remarked. He turned and looked up at the ceiling, noting the half-opened manhole cover and the sound of traffic above. “There’s a trapdoor up to the street. I think we should use it.”

He looked back at Nicky and his much bloodstained clothes. “I’ll go first and get us a car. You run and jump into the back seat.”

Ten minutes later, they were driving through the streets of New York in a requisitioned Model T, Nicky lying flat on the back seat out of sight. They had covered several blocks and it seemed that it was safe to breathe again.

“Why did you tell me to close my eyes?” Joe asked suddenly.

“I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

“I’ve seen you fight before.”

Nicky sighed deeply. “You always say such sweet things to me, about me, always telling people how kind I am. Sometimes I think you forget who I used to be. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

Joe shook his head and took one hand off the wheel, trying to reach back and touch Nicky reassuringly. “How could you ever disappoint me, habibi? You saved me. And for your information, you are still the same man you always have been, someone who fights like a tiger for what you love and what you think is right.”

Nicky held his hand, rubbing his thumb over the fingers, and then released it to let Joe go back to driving. “I thought you would be shocked.”

Joe scoffed at the ridiculous statement. “Nicky, you are wonderful. You are good and generous, and also a fierce warrior. Those two things live in harmony and I love them both. I love every aspect of you. You’re not a mouse and I wouldn’t want you to be.”

“A mouse? Why a mouse?” Nicky asked. Joe could hear the smile in his voice.

“That’s what those men called you,” he admitted. “I tried to explain their mistake, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“I blame you,” Nicky remarked fondly. “You tell everyone in the criminal underworld that I’m a soft touch.”

Not only that, Joe wanted to say. Nicky’s philosophy of ‘do unto others as they do unto you’ contributed a lot as well. Of course, that particular philosophy went both ways.

“All the better for surprising them, my heart,” he said. “Although if you want a more fearsome reputation, it would probably help to leave witnesses.”

Nicky laughed, a dark chuckle that Joe rarely heard and which sent thrills up his spine. “I don’t think so. It suits me to be a mouse.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed, please leave a kudos or comment. Have a good day.


End file.
